By Theodore King

The presidential election is depressingly predictable. A few thoughts: Mitt Romney will be nominated and lose to Barack Obama. Romney will lose to Obama for the same reason fellow Bay Stater Senator John Kerry lost to George Bush in 2004. That year, Democrats decided to go with the default choice and were not enthused. They were fearful of a second Bush term, which they got. To win an election, one has to have hope, not fear. Democrats in 2008 were hopeful about their candidate and the future he would bring. Republicans will never be as hopeful about a Romney presidency as the Democrats were about Obama in 2008.

I was sad to see Atlanta businessman and former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain forced out of the race based on allegations of sexual impropriety. This demoralized the GOP base, especially those who are interested in real tax reform, which they won't get from Romney.

In the Summer 2011 issue of this paper, I wrote this about what would happen in the presidential race: "Look for former Gov. Frank Keating to endorse Mitt Romney. His reason is he wants to be attorney general of the United States. That is why he endorsed John McCain in 2008."

On October 25, 2011, the Mitt Romney website released the following endorsement:

"Announcing his support, former Governor Frank Keating said, "Mitt Romney is the candidate who has a solid plan to get Americans working again, and a track record to go with it...I am proud to support Mitt Romney for President.'"

Frank Keating, who left Oklahoma to live in the Washington, D.C. area nine years ago within one hour after he was no longer governor, has been joined in his endorsement by his brother Dan and son-in-law Ryan Leonard.

I call Mitt Romney the hollow man, the chameleon, the man pictured in a frame one can purchase at a store, and unfortunately he will be known as the election loser. I wish it doesn't have to be this way, but the Republican Party is going through an identity crisis. The corporate establishment is backing Romney, and the middle class conservatives, some of whom are small business owners, are backing several other candidates, thereby splitting up that voting bloc.

And then there is the libertarian, constitutional wing of the GOP as embodied in the candidacy of Congressman Dr. Ron Paul. Ron Paul is 76. His ideals of limited, constitutional government, sound currency, and a national defense will live long past his candidacy and eventually take control of the Republican party. Picture that Miniature Doberman pinscher -- like Mark Levin, who hates Ron Paul and his supporters, being kicked to the curb, and you can see the future that Ron Paul will make. For the record, I had a MiniPin who died last Easter. He was 14 and much loved. Human MiniPens, however, are just annoying.

It is difficult to be optimistic about the future of our nation. Take, for instance, the enactment of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act: An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2012 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.

The "for other purposes" part is what we need to be concerned about.

U.S. citizens and foreign nationals can be detained for an indefinite amount of time or until the end of hostilities according to sub sections 1021 and 1022 of this bill. The Senate passed the bill on December 1 by a vote of 93 to 7. Only three Republicans voted no: Tom Coburn, Mike Lee of Utah, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Jim Inhofe voted yes. On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed the bill into law. The White House issued a statement in which the president said he was signing it despite "having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists." If the president was so concerned about the powers this bill will unleash, why did he sign the bill into law?

This law now effectively ends the 1878 Posse Comitatus law, which barred the military from domestic police actions. When the American Civil Liberties Union and the John Birch Society don't like a law, and they don't like this one, the public should take notice. They and we remember that President Lincoln threw people into jail without a trial during the war between the states, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt threw people of Japanese descent and German Americans known to have Nazi sympathies into detention camps during World War II. I believe, and this is my opinion, that another war is in the works. This war will be with Iran. The global financial situation is not going to see real improvement, and this will cause a relapse into recession or even depression. This will create a potential for political instability. There is nothing like a war to take the public's mind off real problems.

As of Tuesday morning, January 17, 2012, the U.S. debt was $15,241,792,000,000 and several hundred dollars. The hundred thousands mark moves so fast it is impossible to write down the number. Source: www.usdebtclock.org. In the spring of 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a now infamous report saying that pro-lifers, veterans, and most especially Ron Paul supporters could be potential domestic terrorists. This 2009 report was, I believe, written for DHS by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center. In November of that year Major Nidal Hasan, who is Muslim, went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood army base in Texas killing 13 and wounding 29, all the while shouting Allah Akhbar (God is Great). To the Obama justice department these were not acts of terrorism but "work place violence." What if we do have a war with Iran and a lot of us take to the streets in protest? It is not out of the question that protest leaders might be deemed under this new law "Iranian agents." Senator Inhofe voted for this bill because he believes we must fund the military. With a suspension of civil liberties in the bill, he should have joined Tom Coburn in voting no. My concern is that the government and this president want a suspension of civil liberties passed into the military appropriations bill because he may have plans to use this new power.

Part of the Reagan legacy consists of the leaders who came after him; Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia and later of the Czech Republic was one of those men. Vaclav Havel died on December 18th. He was 75. He was born in 1936 to a wealthy Prague family. After World War II, the communists came to power and confiscated the family wealth. Havel became a dissident under communism. He had a gift for writing and wrote plays, some of which were critical of the communist system. Those plays had to be performed in secret. In 1977, Havel gathered with other dissidents and wrote a document demanding human rights known as Charter 77. The authorities jailed the signatories and made it illegal to distribute the document.

Vaclav Havel was in and out of prison. The longest period was for three and a half years, from June 1979 to January 1984. It was during this imprisonment that Havel wrote a series of letters to his wife, later published as a book titled Letters to Olga. When he wasn't in prison, he had to make a living doing menial labor.

Events that took place in November 1989, including especially the tearing down of the Berlin wall, led to the collapse of communism and swept Havel to power as president of Czechoslovakia and constitute what is known as the Velvet Revolution.

As its president, Vaclav Havel tried to keep Czechoslovakia together as one country. He begged the Slovaks to stay, but they wanted their own country, to be known as Slovakia, and they left. He, unlike Abraham Lincoln, didn't force them to stay. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was dissolved, and Havel resigned as president of a nation that no longer existed. He was then elected as president of the new Czech Republic, a post he held until 2003. The headline on January 1, 1993 read something like "Czechoslovakia agrees to divorce but vows to remain friends." As president, he was not always effective or popular, but that is what happens in a free society. His politics were center left.

Vaclav Havel was succeeded in office by Valcav Klaus, who is the Ron Paul of Europe. The Czech Republic has a Ron Paul. Why can't we? It should be noted that The Czech Republic is doing much better economically than much of Europe, and recently the government agreed to compensate the nation's churches with billions over the next several years due to the confiscation of their property under communism.

Havel lent his support to those groups that support dissidents against tyrannical regimes including the Center for a Free Cuba. He said the Cuban system resembled the one he lived under in Czechoslovakia. Fittingly, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003 by President Bush. It should also be noted that Havel really liked America.

It is my hope that young people (and I was young when the Cold War ended) will place those Che Guevara tshirts and posters into the trash and replace Che with images of Havel on their chests and walls. Che Guevara represented the hateful ideology that confiscated the Havel family wealth and jailed him along with countless numbers of his countrymen. Havel's ideology was one of free people, minds, and markets. It was an ideology of hope and love.

Vaclav Havel was a man who proved that sometimes the good guys do win and history can be glorious. I recommend two of his books: Disturbing the Peace and Summer Meditations.

When Havel signed his name, he placed a heart next to his signature. One last observation about Vaclav Havel -- and this is something I have never seen fit to write about a political leader -- is he was unbelievably cool.

"When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed,' it was a simple and important act of the human spirit. What gave meaning to that act, however, was the fact that the author backed it up with his life. It was not just his words, it was his deeds as well."

Vaclav Havel on Thomas Jefferson in a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress February 21, 1990